Over the years, a wide variety of bits has been used to control horses, for riding and driving. Whilst a great variety of different mouth pieces have been tried in the past, in order to provide greater comfort to the horse, a significant disadvantage of all such bits has been the stress and possible injury which may inadvertently be applied to the horse's mouth, in the hands of an inexperienced rider or driver and/or as a result of the horse being startled and shying or snatching, or the rider/driver jerking the reins.
It is an object of the present invention to avoid or minimize one or more of the abovementioned disadvantages.